NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

[metallidevils]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, imo. Look at how long it's been since they have been able to make a Madden worth buying...all because they changed the engine for no apparent reason whatsoever. I still play Madden 08 on my Xbox and I think "why abandon this? Tweak it, but don't do a 180".

I feel if they went to drastic with some changes to this superb engine, it'd be a case of one step forward, two steps back. At this point, I don't want overhauls, just minor to major tweaks. Things like board play and such.

I think about this alot when I hear the skating engine needs work. IMHO, it only needs tweaking. I use the NBA 2K series as a perfect example where "sliding" was a problem in years past. Well, NBA 2K9 was frustrating and at times unplayable because they wanted to make every step count, so to speak. And the Draft Combine is a further evolution of that thinking, where there are times the game just flat out doesn't respond to what I'm asking it to do.

I don't want this in NHL. Video games in general still need to feel a little bit "slippery" because these consoles are nowhere near powerful enough to convey the almost infinite movements the human body can make. Until that day, give me control like this game has, where everything I do happens, is conveyed in a mostly-realistic feel and allows the engine to select the best animation to convey that movement. It's not perfect, but give me the feel first, look second.

Madden 09 and 10 are lightyears ahead of 08. At least between 08 and 09 they've adding stuff to justify a $60 pricetag.

[mkharsh33]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

if they would have patched board play and toned down pass effectiveness, plus adding a few more goalie animations and the fighting engine into NHL 09 - i could save the $60 bucks for something else.

to me, it's basically the same guy with these 4 additions...these are nice additions, but is it really a much different game? not really... we're paying for a roster update which will be full of players (still) with overblown attributes.

i'd like to see something where EA (or any company for that matter) gives you a discount based upon the times you purchase a game. it could be done when you buy the game at the register, and each subsequent year you purchase a title you get a discount.

to me, this game is worth $30 - but not $60... i just don't see anything different with regard to the announcers and the visuals that justify a price like this. enough of my rants... i guess i just expected a bit more due to what i kept hearing about the uniqueness of the various lines and attributes that would show greater separation amongst players - i'm kinda disappointed with this game the more i play the demo... if the passing and board play were not added it would feel just like 09...

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

if they would have patched board play and toned down pass effectiveness, plus adding a few more goalie animations and the fighting engine into NHL 09 - i could save the $60 bucks for something else.

to me, it's basically the same guy with these 4 additions...these are nice additions, but is it really a much different game? not really... we're paying for a roster update which will be full of players (still) with overblown attributes.

i'd like to see something where EA (or any company for that matter) gives you a discount based upon the times you purchase a game. it could be done when you buy the game at the register, and each subsequent year you purchase a title you get a discount.

to me, this game is worth $30 - but not $60... i just don't see anything different with regard to the announcers and the visuals that justify a price like this. enough of my rants... i guess i just expected a bit more due to what i kept hearing about the uniqueness of the various lines and attributes that would show greater separation amongst players - i'm kinda disappointed with this game the more i play the demo... if the passing and board play were not added it would feel just like 09...

Keep in mind mk that the attributes effect slider is half way in the demo, I feel a difference with stars like Crosby or Dats over the lesser skilled guys in the demo so I think its safe to assume you'd see even more of a difference with that slider maxed along with lowering CPU pass accuracy so the CPU AI isn't constantly tape to tape with lesser skilled passers. I've also heard alot of new lines of commentary dialog as well which is always nice imo.

Again I'm not sure what people expect in a year to year product cycle, the core is solid, the're adding features WE asked for every year and continuing to tune the game overall to play a better, more realistic game. EA or 2k for that matter don't start over from scratch every year just so the game seems "fresh", it'd be a pointless effort to do that.

[original6]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Initial impression, not overly impressed. Still reeks too much of NHL 09, which for most is good, but bad for me. Cpu passing was too quick, tic tac toe, and often pointless. Defense is still way too passive, resulting in every offensive possession into a pseudo-powerplay. Goalies still warp and make some odd saves. I really did not like the hold-the-button-down-longer for a faster pass feature.

On the positive side - board play is very nice, when it does happen. There seemed to be more tipped pucks/blocked passes, which gave the game a more organic feel. Skating backwards with the puck and using the stick on defense seemed much better than last year, which made playing defense vastly improved.

I think there's been some very good improvements in the game from what I've seen playing the demo. However, for me it still doesn't feel right. The goalies and passive defense really kill this game for me as they did in NHL 09. Right now I'd say NHL 10 is a no go for me. Unless the 2k10 demo (provided there is one) knocks my socks off, this might be the first year I don't buy a hockey game, which is fine by me. I have other games to play and other things to do.

Anyway, nice effort by EA. I'm sure plenty will be happy with it, just not me.

[Donovan]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

I sort of know what you mean about the goalies, they don't move around much just sort of stay deep in the net and feel unrealistic. Its not a killer by any means, but it would be nice to see goalies take on a bit of reflection to their real life counter parts, skating back and forth in the crease more to get a better view, coming out a bit more to cut down on angles or just minor ticks real goalies have. Goalies are the NHLs pitchers, one man out on an island who are often pretty weird guys. I'd like to see that stuff.

I've only played 3 games on PS3 so far but it seems pretty strong, the controls are hard to pick up for me but I'm always a slow learner with sports game these days. The board play looks and feels very good, passing will take some time.

[sroz39]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Madden 09 and 10 are lightyears ahead of 08. At least between 08 and 09 they've adding stuff to justify a $60 pricetag.

Out of everything I said, THIS is what you focused on? Lol. Seems you missed my point. I'm playing Madden 08 on the original Xbox and Madden 10 on the 360 is the first current gen Madden that is finally catching up to the last gen game in playability and just in general, the whole package that the PS2/Xbox Maddens offered. For what reason? It was completely pointless to change a solid engine.

And that was my whole point, that the NHL series, at this point, is a finely tuned and fun, mostly realistic hockey game engine and people looking for wholesale changes are probably barking up the wrong tree. Rightfully so, might I add. This engine doesn't NEED a huge change. What they're doing, by adding key, sim gameplay functions like boardplay, is making a great, fun game even better.

And yes, moving from last gen to the current gen systems, they overhauled the engine. But that's because they had to. This engine does not need changing, just a few gameplay tweaks, a bit of tightening up of the animations and we're good. I don't want them adding a ton of things half-@$$ed and those additions ruining the game.

[infinityBCRT]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Actually it really is as simple as constraining the acceleration in this case, I've tested a fix already.

Can you think of the downside of the animation solution you propose (and what it would take to overcome it)? It could (and someday will) be done, but it isn't so simple as you make it sound.

Of course its not simple, I understand a 1 year dev cycle makes it hard to radically improve the fundamental engine because you run the risk of not being able to complete such a change or all of the focus on one feature will make it seem like there was very little work done to the game.

But thats why I'm here, to criticize and to push you to try to think out of the box and to do better things. Serving out kool-aid would be far more dangerous, especially if you believed it. Maybe this is a cheap shot at the competitor, but for the last few years they really have been drinking their own kool-aid and the kool-aid of their biggest cheerleaders which is why they thought ideas such as cinemotion or two speed bursts were good when anyone outside of the bubble could see what a disaster such ideas were.

I do think if EA is able to move to a subscription based model where the main development occurs continuously it will allow the team to do two things:

1. Allow for the implementation of bigger features such as a more robust physics engine. Development wouldn't have to be constrained to a 10 month dev cycle.

2. Allow for quicker rollouts of smaller features, stuff that can be rolled out every few months instead of every year. And if any new features/changes completely screw up the game, they can be rolled back instead of the user having to wait another year for it to be fixed.

Boxed copies which are snapshots of the game at the start of the season could still be put out as 50% of the sports gamers out there likely are not active online gamers as well, but I think a subscription model is a great way to give more flexibility to the development team.


--

Okay I got a little side tracked there. By the way, What I really think the next generational leap for hockey games will be after getting the skating engine down is to get movement and collision detection in tight quarters down. If you look at any exciting scramble in the NHL there are players that are able to navigate through tight spaces to get to the puck and thats important. The only video game I can think of that has implemented anything like that is Assassin's Creed with it's crowd AI. I guess its similar to the stuff that natural motion is doing as well, or even some of the stuff in fight night (glancing blows, inside fighting). Having total collision detection with sticks is another goal that needs to be reached. I know its something that seems trivial and minor but if its implemented it will do wonders for many aspects of the gameplay. And finally (and maybe the most least), jerseys would need to be modelled as cloth so that sticks would be able to get caught in them and it would also fix the abnormal texture stretching that occurs during player animations.

Just look at the first goal scored in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLw3WVyD6tE&hd=1 . Something like that is impossible to model because players can not move and react realistically when they are that close together in the game, but once thats possible, we will see some incredible gameplay moments.

Its all a little pie in the sky but thats the next step IMO. Once a new physics engine is in place, the gameplay and presentation can move ahead in meaningful ways.

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Out of everything I said, THIS is what you focused on? Lol. Seems you missed my point. I'm playing Madden 08 on the original Xbox and Madden 10 on the 360 is the first current gen Madden that is finally catching up to the last gen game in playability and just in general, the whole package that the PS2/Xbox Maddens offered. For what reason? It was completely pointless to change a solid engine.

And that was my whole point, that the NHL series, at this point, is a finely tuned and fun, mostly realistic hockey game engine and people looking for wholesale changes are probably barking up the wrong tree. Rightfully so, might I add. This engine doesn't NEED a huge change. What they're doing, by adding key, sim gameplay functions like boardplay, is making a great, fun game even better.

And yes, moving from last gen to the current gen systems, they overhauled the engine. But that's because they had to. This engine does not need changing, just a few gameplay tweaks, a bit of tightening up of the animations and we're good. I don't want them adding a ton of things half-@$$ed and those additions ruining the game.

I think a huge difference is the NHL team was afforded the luxury of taking a year off from having to ship a product while building from the ground up, while the Madden team was not. I would account thats the major reason the NHL sku is so much further along then the rest of the EA sports lineup when it comes to the current gen systems.

Agree with pretty much your entire post on the whole though Sroz, the game doesn't need major changes, just continue to make solid tweaks and add layers of polish like they've been doing, though taking a page out of 2k's book and getting the arena's more true to their real life counterparts and adding specific arena intros would pretty much seal the deal at this point.

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Of course its not simple, I understand a 1 year dev cycle makes it hard to radically improve the fundamental engine because you run the risk of not being able to complete such a change or all of the focus on one feature will make it seem like there was very little work done to the game.

But thats why I'm here, to criticize and to push you to try to think out of the box and to do better things. Serving out kool-aid would be far more dangerous, especially if you believed it. Maybe this is a cheap shot at the competitor, but for the last few years they really have been drinking their own kool-aid and the kool-aid of their biggest cheerleaders which is why they thought ideas such as cinemotion or two speed bursts were good when anyone outside of the bubble could see what a disaster such ideas were.

I do think if EA is able to move to a subscription based model where the main development occurs continuously it will allow the team to do two things:

1. Allow for the implementation of bigger features such as a more robust physics engine. Development wouldn't have to be constrained to a 10 month dev cycle.

2. Allow for quicker rollouts of smaller features, stuff that can be rolled out every few months instead of every year. And if any new features/changes completely screw up the game, they can be rolled back instead of the user having to wait another year for it to be fixed.

Boxed copies which are snapshots of the game at the start of the season could still be put out as 50% of the sports gamers out there likely are not active online gamers as well, but I think a subscription model is a great way to give more flexibility to the development team.


--

Okay I got a little side tracked there. By the way, What I really think the next generational leap for hockey games will be after getting the skating engine down is to get movement and collision detection in tight quarters down. If you look at any exciting scramble in the NHL there are players that are able to navigate through tight spaces to get to the puck and thats important. The only video game I can think of that has implemented anything like that is Assassin's Creed with it's crowd AI. I guess its similar to the stuff that natural motion is doing as well, or even some of the stuff in fight night (glancing blows, inside fighting). Having total collision detection with sticks is another goal that needs to be reached. I know its something that seems trivial and minor but if its implemented it will do wonders for many aspects of the gameplay. And finally (and maybe the most least), jerseys would need to be modelled as cloth so that sticks would be able to get caught in them and it would also fix the abnormal texture stretching that occurs during player animations.

Just look at the first goal scored in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLw3WVyD6tE&hd=1 . Something like that is impossible to model because players can not move and react realistically when they are that close together in the game, but once thats possible, we will wee some incredible gameplay moments.

Its all a little pie in the sky but thats the next step IMO. Once a new physics engine is in place, the gameplay and presentation can move ahead in meaningful ways.

While you make some good points (well except for the whole subscription thing, I'm so not about that) when it comes to physics calculations and the like, I think you need to take into consideration that the current consoles although theyhave multi core processors neither one has much ram, (512 megs on the 360, 256 megs on the PS3) the amount of memory needed to do the precise animation calculations you're laying out, while keeping the framerate solid (something the 360 and PS3 have issues with even now since the're really both underpowered ram wise) is just not going to happen with the current gen machines.

[infinityBCRT]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

While you make some good points (well except for the whole subscription thing, I'm so not about that) when it comes to physics calculations and the like, I think you need to take into consideration that the current consoles although theyhave multi core processors neither one has much ram, (512 megs on the 360, 256 megs on the PS3) the amount of memory needed to do the precise animation calculations you're laying out, while keeping the framerate solid (something the 360 and PS3 have issues with even now since the're really both underpowered ram wise) is just not going to happen with the current gen machines.

Everything can be approximated to some extent. I think I learned that in my linear algebra course . I understand that the 360 and PS3 cannot do everything but if not this gen, then it should be prepared for next gen. A makeshift way to go possibly could be to develop a PC version (oh yes, thats a whole other can of worms... but look at what blizzard is doing with starcraft 2 and thats the answer to pc piracy) which uses a more powerful physics engine until the next generation of consoles arrives and to use a scaled back version on the consoles until the next gen.

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Everything can be approximated to some extent. I think I learned that in my linear algebra course . I understand that the 360 and PS3 cannot do everything but if not this gen, then it should be prepared for next gen. A makeshift way to go possibly could be to develop a PC version (oh yes, thats a whole other can of worms... but look at what blizzard is doing with starcraft 2 and thats the answer to pc piracy) which uses a more powerful physics engine until the next generation of consoles arrives and to use a scaled back version on the consoles until the next gen.

/off topic rant Don't get me started on the most overrated developer in the history of gaming (blizzard) on not only stripping out lan play due to "piracy" or breaking the single player into three seperate skus so they and their new Activision overlords can milk SC2 for all its worth. Or that the Warcraft3 engine even with the spit and polish they've added in the current SC2 builds is still showing its age. Or that they couldn't ship a game in a timely manner (ya know one that isn't a 5+ year dev cycle) to save their lives. /end off topic rant

I hear ya though never to early to prep for the PS4 and Xbox 720, wouldn't mind seeing the NHL series return to the PC either as long as its in NG form this time.

[infinityBCRT]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

/off topic rant Don't get me started on the most overrated developer in the history of gaming (blizzard) on not only stripping out lan play due to "piracy" or breaking the single player into three seperate skus so they and their new Activision overlords can milk SC2 for all its worth. Or that the Warcraft3 engine even with the spit and polish they've added in the current SC2 builds is still showing its age. Or that they couldn't ship a game in a timely manner (ya know one that isn't a 5+ year dev cycle) to save their lives. /end off topic rant

I hear ya though never to early to prep for the PS4 and Xbox 720, wouldn't mind seeing the NHL series return to the PC either as long as its in NG form this time.

Actually LAN play will likely be in SC2 they revealed recently, but they are using online DRM. You'll always have to be connected to the internet though to verify that you do have a valid license to play the game and a lot of the game's functionality is tied into battle.net (such as the friends list, leaderboards, etc) so whether you like it or not, it increases the willingness of someone to purchase the game rather than pirate it. Offline DRM or one-time activation DRM can always be cracked and is rather ineffective because it punishes the legit buyers and does nothing to deter the pirates.

By the way, I wanna say that EA_Redshirt is a good guy for doing this and opening the lines of communication between the developers and the community. With this plus Rammer's twitter it feels like more than ever the team is listening to the community.

[RealmK]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

Actually LAN play will likely be in SC2 they revealed recently, but they are using online DRM. You'll always have to be connected to the internet though to verify that you do have a valid license to play the game and a lot of the game's functionality is tied into battle.net (such as the friends list, leaderboards, etc) so whether you like it or not, it increases the willingness of someone to purchase the game rather than pirate it. Offline DRM or one-time activation DRM can always be cracked and is rather ineffective because it punishes the legit buyers and does nothing to deter the pirates.

Which defeats the whole point of keeping a LAN party offline so as not to have guys run off to "help a guildy in wow real quick" or "check email real quick" not to mention lan competitions, god all those SC players in China must be pissed about this. etc etc. I'm all for supporting developers, especially on games I like (Bioware's titles come instantly to mind having just preordered the CE PC edition of DragonAge) but all the draconian DRM in the world is only going to hurt PC gaming more than its going to help sales imo. Gah must not derail thread! naughty naughty infinity, ya made me go off on a rant.

[ether]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

My thought is they make fighting a user 's choice at all times...whether you are trying to initiate it or the CPU (just like it was done in 2004). Have a graphic pop up on the screen where you have to hit a specific button to start the fight. I don't want to risk pinning a plyer on the boards with Gagne or Carter and run the risk of a fight occurring and I lose one of my superstars for 5 minutes.

For me, this takes away a degree of control and realism that I want in my hockey game.

Definitely, from that perspective, it does take away from the game a bit. I'm actually pretty impressed with the new first-person fighter, it's certainly a big step up from what we've had in the past. I guess they already give the option to choose the fight when they are trying to instigate you so to have it work both ways should be an easy fix and just makes a lot of sense.

[Myloman]

Re: NHL 10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360 & PS3)

This is the most realistic sports game I've ever played, and saying that without sliders is pretty damn amazing.